née

Née is a French term meaning “born” and is used as a past participle form of naître. It denotes a person’s birth name, typically the surname the person bore before marriage, adoption, or name changes. The feminine form is née, while the masculine form is né. The diaeresis is an accent mark that helps indicate pronunciation and gender in print.

In English and many other languages, née is used to indicate a woman’s birth name after her current name. It is commonly placed after the married name, often in parentheses or in apposition, as in Marie Curie, née Sklodowska. The phrase can appear in this or a similar format: X, née Y or X (née Y). The masculine form né is used for men when a birth name or earlier name is relevant, for example Napoléon Bonaparte, né Napoléon Buonaparte, though this usage is less common in contemporary writing.

Usage and scope: née is primarily found in biographical, historical, or genealogical writing and in formal contexts. It serves to identify a person’s original surname and to link different name forms across time. It does not denote marriage itself or a changed identity beyond the birth name; it specifically signals the name given at birth.

Pronunciation and typography: né and née are pronounced roughly as “nay.” In some English texts, diacritics are omitted or approximated, resulting in ne or nee. Style guides vary on preserving accents, but many sources retain the original French spellings to signal gender and linguistic origin.